Title: Measurements of Polarization Transfers in Real Compton Scattering by a proton target at JLAB. A new source of information on the 3D shape of the nucleon

Abstract

In this thesis work, results of the analysis of the polarization transfers measured in real Compton scattering (RCS) by the Collaboration E07-002 at the Je fferson Lab Hall-C are presented. The data were collected at large scattering angle (theta_cm = 70deg) and with a polarized incident photon beam at an average energy of 3.8 GeV. Such a kind of experiments allows one to understand more deeply the reaction mechanism, that involves a real photon, by extracting both Compton form factors and Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) (also relevant for possibly shedding light on the total angular momentum of the nucleon). The obtained results for the longitudinal and transverse polarization transfers K_LL and K_LT, are of crucial importance, since they confirm unambiguously the disagreement between experimental data and pQCD prediction, as it was found in E99-114 experiment, and favor the Handbag mechanism. The E99-114 and E07-002 results can contribute to attract new interest on the great yield of the Compton scattering by a nucleon target, as demonstrated by the recent approval of an experimental proposal submitted to the Jefferson Lab PAC 42 for a Wide-angle Compton Scattering experiment, at 8 and 10 GeV Photon Energies. The new experiments approved to run withmore » the updated 12 GeV electron beam at JLab, are characterized by much higher luminosities, and a new GEM tracker is under development to tackle the challenging backgrounds. Within this context, we present a new multistep tracking algorithm, based on (i) a Neural Network (NN) designed for a fast and efficient association of the hits measured by the GEM detector which allows the track identification, and (ii) the application of both a Kalman filter and Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother to further improve the track reconstruction. The full procedure, i.e. NN and filtering, appears very promising, with high performances in terms of both association effciency and reconstruction accuracy, and these preliminary results will be discussed in detail in the last chapters.« less

Citation Formats

Fanelli, Cristiano V. Measurements of Polarization Transfers in Real Compton Scattering by a proton target at JLAB. A new source of information on the 3D shape of the nucleon. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.2172/1221961.

Fanelli, Cristiano V. Measurements of Polarization Transfers in Real Compton Scattering by a proton target at JLAB. A new source of information on the 3D shape of the nucleon. United States. doi:10.2172/1221961.

Fanelli, Cristiano V. 2015.
"Measurements of Polarization Transfers in Real Compton Scattering by a proton target at JLAB. A new source of information on the 3D shape of the nucleon". United States.
doi:10.2172/1221961. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1221961.

@article{osti_1221961,
title = {Measurements of Polarization Transfers in Real Compton Scattering by a proton target at JLAB. A new source of information on the 3D shape of the nucleon},
author = {Fanelli, Cristiano V.},
abstractNote = {In this thesis work, results of the analysis of the polarization transfers measured in real Compton scattering (RCS) by the Collaboration E07-002 at the Je fferson Lab Hall-C are presented. The data were collected at large scattering angle (theta_cm = 70deg) and with a polarized incident photon beam at an average energy of 3.8 GeV. Such a kind of experiments allows one to understand more deeply the reaction mechanism, that involves a real photon, by extracting both Compton form factors and Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) (also relevant for possibly shedding light on the total angular momentum of the nucleon). The obtained results for the longitudinal and transverse polarization transfers K_LL and K_LT, are of crucial importance, since they confirm unambiguously the disagreement between experimental data and pQCD prediction, as it was found in E99-114 experiment, and favor the Handbag mechanism. The E99-114 and E07-002 results can contribute to attract new interest on the great yield of the Compton scattering by a nucleon target, as demonstrated by the recent approval of an experimental proposal submitted to the Jefferson Lab PAC 42 for a Wide-angle Compton Scattering experiment, at 8 and 10 GeV Photon Energies. The new experiments approved to run with the updated 12 GeV electron beam at JLab, are characterized by much higher luminosities, and a new GEM tracker is under development to tackle the challenging backgrounds. Within this context, we present a new multistep tracking algorithm, based on (i) a Neural Network (NN) designed for a fast and efficient association of the hits measured by the GEM detector which allows the track identification, and (ii) the application of both a Kalman filter and Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother to further improve the track reconstruction. The full procedure, i.e. NN and filtering, appears very promising, with high performances in terms of both association effciency and reconstruction accuracy, and these preliminary results will be discussed in detail in the last chapters.},
doi = {10.2172/1221961},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = 2015,
month = 3
}

A preliminary analysis of polarization-transfer data at large scattering angle (70°), obtained in an experiment of real Compton scattering on proton, performed in Hall-C of Jefferson Lab, is presented. It is also discussed the relevance of this kind of experiments for shedding light on the non-perturbative structure of the proton, at low energy, and on the transition from the non-perturbative regime to the perturbative one, that occurs at high energy. Moreover, the possibility to extract Compton form factors and the Generalized Parton Distributions, one of the most promising theoretical tool to determine the total angular momentum contribution of quarks andmore » gluons to nucleon spin, is emphasized.« less

Analyzing powers and spin transfer coefficients which describe the elastic scattering of polarized protons from a polarized deuteron target have been measured. The energy of the proton beam was 800 MeV and data were taken at laboratory scattering angles of 7, 11, 14, and 16.5 degrees. One analyzing power was also measured at 180 degrees. Three linearly independent orientations of the beam polarization were used and the target was polarized parallel and antiparallel to the direction of the beam momentum. The data were taken with the high resolution spectrometer at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (experiment 685). The resultsmore » are compared with multiple scattering predictions based on Dirac representations of the nucleon-nucleon scattering matrices.« less

In the present work, preliminary results of the analysis of polarization transfers in real Compton scattering (RCS) performed in Hall-C at JLAB are presented, for data collected at large scattering angle (θ{sub cm}=70{degrees}) in the experiment E07-002. A previous experiment, E99-114, has already demonstrated a complete inconsistence of its results with a pQCD mechanism at JLAB energy regime. This kind of experiment, therefore, is of crucial importance for understanding the nature of the reaction mechanism for such a simple process, involving a real photon. Furthermore, RCS experiments allow the extraction of Compton form factors and Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs), themore » latter connected to the total angular momentum of the nucleon.« less

Similar to elastic electron scattering, Compton Scattering on the proton at high momentum transfers(and high p⊥) can be an effective method to study its short-distance structure. An experiment has been carried out to measure the cross sections for Real Compton Scattering (RCS) on the proton for 2.3-5.7 GeV electron beam energies and a wide distribution of large scattering angles. The 25 kinematic settings sampled a domain of s = 5-11(GeV/c) 2,-t = -7(GeV/c) 2 and -u = 0.5-6.5(GeV/c) 2. In addition, a measurement of longitudinal and transverse polarization transfer asymmetries was made at a 3.48 GeV beam energy and amore » scattering angle of θ cm = 120°. These measurements were performed to test the existing theoretical mechanisms for this process as well as to determine RCS form factors. At the heart of the scientific motivation is the desire to understand the manner in which a nucleon interacts with external excitations at the above listed energies, by comparing and contrasting the two existing models – Leading Twist Mechanism and Soft Overlap “Handbag” Mechanism – and identify the dominant mechanism. Furthermore, the Handbag Mechanism allows one to calculate reaction observables in the framework of Generalized Parton Distributions (GPD), which have the function of bridging the wide gap between the exclusive(form factors) and inclusive(parton distribution functions) description of the proton. The experiment was conducted in Hall A of Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility(Jefferson Lab). It used a polarized and unpolarized electron beam, a 6% copper radiator with the thickness of 6.1% radiation lengths (to produce a bremsstrahlung photon beam), the Hall A liquid hydrogen target, a high resolution spectrometer with a focal plane polarimeter, and a photon hodoscope calorimeter. Results of the differential cross sections are presented, and discussed in the general context of the scientific motivation.« less